Comments by "Major Moolah" (@majormoolah5056) on "GZERO Media" channel.

  1. - Europe wants a stable post-war Ukraine over a total military victory. There have been reports of political instability in Ukraine and their economy is of course in shambles. The sooner the peace process begins, the sooner the refugees can start moving back and the cheaper the reconstruction will be. - USA paid for this war so they in essence own the outcome. Biden said many times he wants Ukraine to take back all their territory and that the whole "rules-based order" hinges on this war. Turns out this was a bad strategy. - Ukraine made the future offensive into a media event over the last 8 months or so. They did it to get more material support from the west. In the process, this offensive is not only heavily telegraphed, it is basically a huge political event as well. - Russia has of course been planning for this offensive for a long time now. Both armies have been trying to cause attrition to one another in preparation. Ukraine air defences in particular have suffered. - If Ukraine manages to take back a city, let us say Melitopol, that will of course be a big thing. But it will cost them dearly regardless. Russians can still put on a credible defence. So after the offensive, there will be another long period of grind and Ukraine will then want more materiel for the next offensive 6-8 months after this one. The Americans in particular are not going to pay. The Europeans theoretically might give enough to keep Ukraine in the defensive game. But I doubt that as well. - There were some voices after the two great victories that said that the negotiations need to happen now. Mark Milley and Emmanuel Macron in particular. But there was so much backlash amid the euphoria, that it went nowhere. In retrospect, we should have heard the message from Biden. - Putin is happy to make peace if he gets to keep his territory and also give credit of the peace deal over to China... because that undermines USA. - Going back to Macron... he had a phone call with Biden before and after his three-day meeting with Xi. After his controversial message, John Kirby was asked to respond and he only praised the bilateral relationship with France and all the security cooperation they make. There was no public backlash against Macron from any political leaders. It was all in the media and academia. Clearly there is something here. If you look at the diplomatic networks France has in the world, it is clear they are a player. They have the second largest amount of diplomats and they are heavily involved in just about all the international organisations out there. I have read some interesting essays on great power competition. Because the American slice of the pie is smaller in relation to others, we will see a rise of the middle level players. France might overreach and collapse, but they are not to be ignored as Americans tend to do. - If it really turns out that American and NATO support does not win the war and China can come in to make peace, it will change the balance in European security. American security guarantees are not as absolute as they were in 1995. Europe wants to have a relationship with China for commercial reasons but for the Russian card as well. And of course Europeans will finally have to take their own security more seriously. We will also have to see how this peace scenario plays into the 2024 elections. American voters only care about foreign policy when it fails.
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  2. As an European, I would certainly vote for Biden. But the big question are the swing states. If the US economy is really headed for a hard time, as US economists believe, then it looks bad. In Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania times are tough for many. Many of those Covid programs that helped are winding down. If the prices at the pump are high and the Republicans have a good campaign, then God help us all. We also have the Ukraine War. Biden has certainly done many things right, but he never really laid out an ending for the war. In all his public statements, he has always been very gung-ho and total victory. "Putin can end this war by withdrawing all his forces" is an understandable sentiment, but not very concrete. That is very unfortunate for us Europeans. Because it has been clear for a long time now that there needs to be a negotiated settlement with Putin. A frozen conflict or a Balkan-style failure of Ukraine would be extremely bad for us. So then we get to the unfortunate situation where Xi is the only one who can pressure Putin to a sustainable peace instead of a frozen conflict. For some reason Ukrainians have been very positive towards Xi as well. Having Xi be the mediator is a terrifying prospect, but he will probably do it just to undermine USA. But if you look at the budgetary realities, Europe cannot keep this war going in 2024 and beyond. Look at the number of refugees. United Nations Security Council continues to be paralyzed. But maybe the mediator could come from there, who knows. If Xi manages to score a peace deal before the 2024 election, then Trump will very easily play on that. Before you go calling Macron a traitor and so on, it should be noted that for months he went to great lengths to be the mediator. But the traditional Francophobe attitudes as well as the failed Minsk agreements made that impossible. Even worse, for some reason the United States took a very strange role in their messaging. Essentially they tried to create an West-versus-East division. It is very probable that Macron's desire to create a "third superpower" led to the American desire to undermine him. I am not privy to Mr. Biden's private conversations, but I looked very many relevant press conferences and read a tremendous amount of US political press and this is my impression of it. So it goes in politics. In their desire to have a more pliable Europe as it pertains to China led to undermining Macron which then led to Macron having to extend an olive branch to Xi. Again, the EU budgetary realities are not there for a long war. But because "French are perfidious" we get this mess instead. And then we in Europe might have to deal with Trump again. I do not think this whole mess ultimately falls on Biden alone, but my concerns for the quality of American leadership these past 22 years or so are getting ever more stark. I do understand that the prospect of Trump returning changes everyone's calculus. We all have to hedge against Trump. Ironically, this makes things harder for Biden which in turns makes it more probable for Trump to return. Biden has a very difficult situation and we do hope he navigates it to victory.
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  3. Apparently the Ukrainian proxies in Belgorod were Russian neo-Nazis. Ukraine does not have any kind of plausible deniability. They worked with neo-Nazis and gave them American equipment to attack Russian soil. Not only are the Ukrainians willing to ignore Russian red lines, they also do not seem to care about American red lines. Maybe they calculate that Biden has reversed his position so many times already that he will not do anything now. Some time ago Henry Kissinger criticised the European position of arming Ukraine but not bringing them into NATO. Kissinger said that Ukrainian leadership does not have strategic experience, which is completely true, and that having Ukraine in NATO would make it easier to control them, which is patently untrue. Already we are seeing we have very little control over Ukrainian decisions. We have also seen that Hungary and Turkey can basically do what they want with impunity. We often think that bringing Ukraine into NATO will protect them from a second Russian invasion. But there is another very likely scenario. Ukraine is going to have a very hard time reclaiming their territory before a peace deal. At the very least Crimea will remain in Russian hands. So there is the collective experience of a bloody war and the political reality of contested territory after any peace. That will breed political instability and revanchism most likely. Future Ukrainian leadership might provoke a war with Russia, calculating that a NATO membership will bring in the alliance. There should be no short cut into NATO.
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  4. You should listen to Jeffrey Sachs and Ray McGovern for insight into why the Ukraine War happened in the first place. They have expertise and senior level connections into the whole situation. Then, if you want deep background into American geostrategy, you should read The Grand Chessboard by Brzezinski. And if your sanity can endure, the works of Robert Kagan. Then we should also mention Madeleine Albright and her speeches and writings in the 1990s. And finish with the leaked memo "Nyet Means Nyet" by William Burns, then diplomat, now head of CIA. Suffice to say, this war was created by 32 years of American foreign policy. Expand NATO eastwards and develop bulwarks against Russian influence in a very 19th-century way, mixed with Cold War containment. Senior American officials, Europeans, Russians and Ukrainians themselves kept saying that this is insanity. At some point expanding NATO into Ukraine will lead into war. Yet the Americans kept pressing. We have audio recordings proving that Victoria Nuland engineered the Ukrainian coup in 2014. We should also remember how the Americans funded and supported Ukrainian neo-Nazis and other far right forces. John McCain even shared a stage with them. If you know Russian politics, then you know that fascism in Eastern Europe will drive them crazy. That is very likely what the Americans intended. Then we had the 2014 peace negotiations. Obama said "count me out" and made France and Germany the guarantors of that peace. But the then-Prime Minister of Ukraine slipped a poison pill into the accords: only after the rebels disarm and surrender, can the peace talks begin. Suffice to say, that killed the whole thing. Obama also trained Ukrainian soldiers and otherwise increased NATO presence in Ukraine. Classic Obama foreign policy: find the muddled middle. I would say that Obama realised that the peace will fail and that will then fall on Merkel and Sarkozy. And that this creates divisions inside Europe. During the early months of the war, there was a massive media blitz from the American side: East Europe was right to distrust Putin, weak Western Europe is kowtowing to tyrants. There were in fact peace talks in March 2022. Zelensky literally came out and said that Ukraine can be neutral. These talks were guaranteed by Turkey and there was an Israeli negotiator involved. The peace agreement reached its sixth draft when the Americans threw it out. They said that there will be a military solution to this. So now here we are. USA does not have the industrial base to give the Ukrainians what they need to win. Biden cannot find a negotiated settlement, because after 32 years of NATO-related lies, Russians cannot trust anything he says. And in Vilnius it became crystal clear that Americans will never let Ukraine into NATO. Currently 20% of Ukrainian brigades marked for the counter-offensive are lost. 40% is still engaged and another 40% in reserve. Over the last year, the Russians have retrained, reorganised and re-equipped. In the east of Ukraine, 100,000 Russian soldiers have amassed with hundreds of tanks and vehicles and so on. Russians will very likely launch an offensive of their own, once the Ukrainians have sent in and lost their strategic reserves. There have been absolutely horrifying videos from the front, where Ukrainians are given a week of training and then sent into the fight. Putin has no reason to negotiate, because at this point he might as well go in. There is nothing to lose by pressing on, but there is very much to lose by quitting. Why would he just suddenly end the war and let Ukraine enter NATO? Military experts and those with contacts into Russian elites say that Russia will very likely take all the parts of Ukraine that have an ethnic-Russian majority. Makes sense, because the ethnic hatred created in 2014 and the related violence are one key reason for this war. So this means that Russia will push forward until the Dnepr River. Then they might very well take Odessa if they can, because this will ensure that Ukraine becomes a failed state that cannot join EU or NATO. There can be no doubt that the underlying reason for this war is NATO expansion into Ukraine. This was the American strategy, clearly laid out. The only question is, was this conflict created purposefully by the American foreign policy establishment. I believe it was. USA has a very long tradition of creating these conflicts and making regime changes. The Soviet-Afghan War was started in large part by the Islamist extreme, who the Americans were funding. We know now that they calculated that this would pull the Russians in. At no point has Biden publicly stated that he even wants to win this war and he has never given Ukraine enough to do so. Just to maintain. Ukraine winning would mean nuclear war. So why has Biden so stubbornly pushed for this? Even when he held the Ukraine portfolio during the Obama administration, he was an ultra-hawk. Smart money says that the Americans calculated that this war will weaken Russia fatally, destabilize EU with the joining of a huge and dysfunctional Ukraine, make US the energy provider of Germany and finally strengthen NATO once more. Let Europe deal with the mess. This whole thing was an American proxy war, Cold War-style, and it shows how utterly empty and violent the American foreign policy is. There is no rules-based international order because USA alone makes, enforces and breaks the rules as it sees fit. Let the horrifying parasite finally fall and die.
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  5. With the latest aid package, Europe has now put in twice as much as US. US got great return on their investment as well. 60% of European Peace Facility money going to Ukraine went to American arms manufacturers. All those long-term, exorbitantly expensive LNG contracts are a part of the American design as well. There are now 18 countries operating the F-35, 10 of them being European. According to US Government Accountability Office as well as Pentagon, the F-35 is still too unsafe to enter mass production. All those missile defences in the European Sky Shield have success rate of 0.2, which to say they two incoming threats out of ten. Because the European politicians were naïve enough to sign on to all this, Trump now has incredible leverage over European countries. He can afford to say what he says, because we have entered into structural dependencies. Biden knows all this. In fact, he wanted to increase European dependencies to their absolute maximum. Biden can afford to boast that he blew up the Nord Stream because that is what you get with dependencies. US has been buying Russian uranium from Rosatom all the while Germany has been in decline. United States is a parasite. They wanted the Ukraine War in part for "divide and conquer" in Europe, in part for corporate greed. I find it fascinating how the Americans operate. They pressured Pistorius to say that the ammunition target will be unmet. Then down the way they pressured Czechs to say "we should buy outside the EU." EU did give 850,000 shells out of a target of million. That is very impressive but that is not the narrative. United States is a sclerotic parasite.
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  6. I thought Biden was delusional. There was no talk of diplomacy or political solutions. He was talking about how US is the "essential nation" and how much weapons they produce. Blinken's visits to Arab leaders did less than zero. And the big summit with Biden was cancelled. It is pretty clear the Arabs are united and are freezing US out. They have finally had enough. In the UN security council, 14 nations voted for a cease-fire in Gaza and humanitarian assistance. 1 voted against, being the United States of course. Pakistani pledged in public to give nuclear weapons to Turkey should Ankara find itself in a war with Israel. US does not have the ground forces to do much of anything. A few thousand Marines in a regional war are not enough. There is talk that Hezbollah has Iranian drones and missiles that could reach the American carriers. What Biden is doing is insane. The Ukraine War is over. Ukrainian casualties are in the hundreds of thousands and the longer it keeps going, the higher the risk for a nuclear escalation. It is very much possible that Ukraine will not last until 2025 and then the October Surprise of 2024 will be a Russian parade in Kiev. I think Biden is far gone enough to go to war than face humiliation. Do the Americans even realise how isolated they have become?
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  7. What has changed in the calculus for Mike Johnson? Why would he pass the Ukraine package now? The Republican majority is now even smaller than before. The rank and file promised their voters that they would not accept aid to Ukraine until the border is fixed. Marjorie Taylor Greene already made some noise about a vote of no confidence, though she did not bring that to a floor vote as of yet. So if Johnson did pass the Ukraine aid in any form, he would have to trust on the Democrats supporting him, unlike Kevin McCarthy. So the Democrats would have to support Johnson not once but from now until the election! How could Johnson rely on that? And if he owed his position to the Democrats, how could he lead his own anymore? I find it impossible to believe that Johnson would pass the Ukraine aid. It simply is not a voting issue in 2024 to anyone. In fact, I would say that Biden making Ukraine his key achievement in his first term makes it more likely for Trump and his camp to leave Biden twisting in the wind. If Biden goes into the Washington NATO summit still saying "They need to pass the supplemental" then its a historic humiliation for him, which is what Trump cares about. Trump most likely calculates that it does not matter what he does because Europeans are worthless dependants anyway. Trump's base believes that the world is a parasite on the Americans, Europeans in particular. What they do not know is that if Europe stops supporting the dollar, there is no more dollar. The only people who understand that dominating Europe on the cheap is why NATO exists are the foreign policy elites, who of course cannot explain this to the public.
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  8. US currently has sanctions against 3+ billion people. Billion with a B. So the Global South has a very good reason to get rid of their Dollar Overlords. There are other reasons as well: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Yemen and Ukraine. US has been the main driver for these disasters that absolutely radiate instability in their respective regions. No one benefits from US security hegemony anymore. There have been polls in South Korea and Japan where most of the young see USA as the main threat to their security and future. Who can blame them? US currently has 800 military bases across the world and these bases are absolutely being used as diplomatic leverage. I do not think BRICS is going to create their own Euro anytime soon. But I do foresee the world getting ever more disillusioned and exhausted with the American hegemony. What will probably happen is that players like Saudi Arabia and China are gradually going to stop buying US treasury bonds. Considering the trajectory of US deficit and debt, that is going to create tremendous problems for the Americans. If you add up Pentagon budget, nuclear weapons, intelligence agencies and military aid to allies like Israel, it is around 1,5 trillion at the moment. The entire budget is close to 6 trillion with a 1,2 trillion deficit. That is completely unsustainable. BRICS and others are simply going to look at that and say "We are not going to finance this destabilizing hegemon anymore." Which is what they probably should do, from their perspective. Medicaid and Social Security will become insolvent in the 2030s. The interest payments are going to be bigger that the Pentagon budget in the 2030s as well. By some metrics 25% of Americans live in poverty and life expectancy has been dropping for 20 years as well. US is doing very badly at home. All that 30+ trillion in debt went to wars and various emergencies from 2008 to the pandemic. As a consequence the US public health, education and infrastructure are absolutely decrepit. China does not want a war with USA because they are simply looking at the US federal budget and conclude that they are going to win economically. Which they will do. Wealth inequality in USA is far worse than in 1929 and the underlying economy is nowhere near as robust as it was then. I think 70% or so is consumer spending and 10% or so is manufacturing. European manufacturing base is stronger than the American one, in fact. Which is probably why US blew up Nord Stream and put in the IRA subsidies. They are desperate. I would call the American problem the Hegemonic Cycle. They need to maintain security hegemony to maintain dollar dominance, because otherwise their economy would collapse under the costs of maintaining dollar dominance. But that is all coming to a close. Ukraine War has really showed us how weak and chaotic the formerly all-powerful colonial overlord actually is. USA cannot defeat China because USA is too weak to defeat Russia. No one will miss American hegemony once it collapses in the 2030s.
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  9. I do not see the much-ballyhooed populist wave in the horizon. The trifecta of Brexit, Trump and the Ukraine War have made the European Union more important than ever. I actually watched some video about the recent Eurosceptic conference in Italy, hosted by Matteo Salvini. Le Pen and Wilders did not even bother to show up. In their video speeches they only spoke of "reforming the EU" which is certainly a sea change. If even these people cannot carry a message of Euroscepticism, what will they run on? It seems the far right is going to deflate due to that lack of a clear message. I have often remarked that in 2008 we had the Eurozone crisis and in 2022 we began the "NATO-zone crisis" where we will see what the future European security architecture will look like. I would conclude by saying that Orban also seems lonely and confused at the moment... desperate for a friend and flailing. That is certainly a joyous omen. I also hope we have also seen the last of von der Leyen. The Israel trip was the last straw and even after that she managed to bribe Orban... what do you call the straw after the last straw?
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  10. Very depressing turn. The sanctions regime on Venezuela has done nothing but punish the regular folk and keep Maduro in power. He can sell oil and keep himself and his cronies going in perpetuity. I was sincerely hoping that Venezuela would have been one of the successes of the Biden administration. It does raise questions about the state of American power in Latin America, which should be their sphere of influence.
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  11. Two years ago, Biden and Scholz had a press conference where Biden pledged to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline. The fact that Scholz chose to eat the humiliation and let the German economy fall into ruin is why he is so unpopular. When historians wrote on the end of NATO, that press conference will be seen as the moment the alliance died.
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  12. One thing to add is the current state of US foreign policy. Apart from the two hot wars, there are many worrying incidents around the Philippines. Biden is making a full court press against Russia, Iran and China at the same time. This is not only poor strategy but very dangerous for the entire planet. We should be discussing much more whether or not Biden is capable of being Commander-in-Chief. Because if he gives the order to go into Ukraine, or pressures Europeans to do it, he has the power of the office behind him. The people under him will have to obey the order or trigger a constitutional crisis. I'm not sure if the general public in the United States has an understanding how serious the situation in Ukraine is. They cannot survive until the inauguration. True, Biden has said that US troops in Ukraine is a red line. Then again, Biden has crossed all of his red lines in Ukraine and Gaza thus far. We should also ask the question, if Biden is capable of even negotiating with Putin even if he wanted to. I cannot believe the West has come to this point. It pains me.
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  13. Biden promised to regulate AI. Instead he came up with voluntary guidelines, which is a complete joke. We know now that US military is battling their recruitment crisis by pushing full-bore towards the automated battlefield. Not only that, USA pushed Romania to nominate an American economist into a top EU regulatory position. That American had worked as a consultant for Big Tech, to the surprise of no one. Waiting for US to act responsibly is a futile pursuit.
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  14. Biden will always have the European vote. But I am a bit more pessimistic about the student loan thing. It was a key campaign promise in both the presidential election and the midterms. Why it matters so much in 2024 is the economic moment. The loan payments have been frozen thanks to Covid, but now the payments are resuming. And the interest rates are currently high. US households hold a lot of debt, credit cards and otherwise, and many have been living paycheck to paycheck. American voters tend to look in their pockets during presidential elections and vote based on "right now." And Bidenomics is clearly his campaign theme. George W. Bush had 90% popularity ratings but he lost to Clinton due to a recession. Biden's majorities in the key states were wafer-thin in 2020. You had states with 8 million people where Biden won by 20,000 votes. If the high interest rates cause a slowdown in the job markets as many predict... we might have a disaster in 2024. Trump could run on "I'm a crook... but good for the economy" and succeed.
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  15. I have something to share about the European tech sector, courtesy of Le Monde, June 13, 2023. "The key figures are well known: European tech is a $3 trillion industry, with an annual growth rate of 27 % since 2015. More than 300 companies valued at over $1 billion have been founded in Europe, from a diverse base of 29 countries... The flow of emerging high-tech companies is almost equal to that in the United States. Both regions now create the same amount of new start-ups each year. Thirty per cent of all global funding for early-stage companies went to European start-ups, compared with 36% for the US. This gap has halved in five years. What's more, Europe is showing greater dynamism, with a compound annual growth rate of 24% over the last 10 years, compared with 4% in the US. At this rate, Europe will overtake the US in five years' time... The flow of emerging high-tech companies is almost equal to that in the United States. Both regions now create the same amount of new start-ups each year. Thirty per cent of all global funding for early-stage companies went to European start-ups, compared with 36% for the US. This gap has halved in five years. What's more, Europe is showing greater dynamism, with a compound annual growth rate of 24% over the last 10 years, compared with 4% in the US. At this rate, Europe will overtake the US in five years' time... Europe has twice as many software developers as the US, and boasts four of the world's top 10 technical universities (compared with three in the US). This provides a solid base for Europe to become a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technologies – 18% of the world's AI research talent is in Europe, compared with 20% in the US..." So I hope you had the chance to read that. There is a wonderful tech show in Paris called VivaTech. I highly recommend you look it up. The Eurozone crisis caused a Lost Decade in European tech, but during these last five years or so things have changed completely. I could make a separate post about the European defence industry... but if you want one example, EU shipbuilders are now the leading exporters of military vessels by a wide margin. US Navy is also buying European, by way of the Constellation-class frigate.
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  16. Biden bypassed Congress twice to get military aid to Israel. You can do that when there is an immediate danger to American security. So if you are keeping score, Americans are breaking even their own laws to arm Israel. Israeli settlers are already in Northern Gaza, too. IDF needs an operational pause and there might be a ceasefire for that. Then they will certainly go into Rafah, as Israel government officials have repeatedly stated. Netanyahu can do as he pleases, because you cannot get elected in the United States without AIPAC.
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  17. One day Carl Bildt will understand that US designed the Ukraine War as a wedge, to play divide-and-conquer between EU and Russia. Ian Bremmer and Fareed Zakaria literally say in public that Ukraine should be given EU membership in exchange of giving the occupied territories to Putin. If that does not tell you who the Americans are behind the mask, then nothing will. Washington wants to destroy Ukraine and then make EU pay for the reconstruction. This is not very complicated.
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  18. It is a disgusting crime. Putin has done such things in the past. But the Western moral outrage is puzzling to me. Mohammed bin Salman has done much worse but Biden is perfectly willing to embrace him. Israel military is also torturing Palestinians on a daily basis. The internal security services under Ben-Givir are sadistic to the extreme. Then we have Julian Assange who will certainly die in an American prison cell one day. Washington has no moral authority left. Geopolitically speaking, this will be news in Europe but not elsewhere. Lavrov has been in India and Putin is going to Turkey. Like it or not, Russia is not a rogue state. At some point in time, we need to recognise this reality and ask how we can coexist with Russia on the same planet, no matter their political system.
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  19. People often think that the European Union regulates AI because there are no AI companies in Europe. But if you look at the continent as a whole, the investment ecosystem is there as are the companies. You cannot regulate AI unless you actually understand it. Ethical AI is a good way to stand out. European hospitals use AI widely as a diagnostic tool. French APCs have networked AI that launches defensive systems when the vehicles are under fire. ChatGPT got a lot of press, but what was left out was the contribution made by several European companies into that product. Making AI regulation also gives a lot of political power. On a final note, it is no coincidence that Brussels is making AI regulation at the same time as we are talking about the corrosive force of populism and containing it.
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  20. Macron made a very interesting speech at Globsec in May, about EU security and Eastern Europe. It is on YouTube and definitely worth listening to. I will link it for convenience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuQxeJfawrY For background, France recognised the East/West split that we saw in the early part of the war and they moved to mend things. The big takeaway for Americans is that "EU shared defence is complementary to NATO." That shared defence at this point is basically industrial policy. EU has made a joint project to produce artillery ammunition for Ukraine and this project will very likely be a test case for future projects, as things tend to happen in EU. So it is a very interesting development. If EU harmonises its defence industry, rearming is going to be much cheaper and more efficient. It should also smooth the Franco-American relationship, if both parties agree that this is the way forward. USA gets a guarantee that EU and NATO do not develop in divergent direction, France gets a stronger Europe and of course gets to advance their industrial agenda. Hopefully this development goes further. EU has always been a peace project, but now it is taking more of a security role. It is one important trend to look at these coming years! I think the cluster munitions are a bad idea both for humanitarian and political reasons. EU countries have banned cluster munitions, so it is impossible for them to not criticise the decision. USA criticised the Russian cluster munitions earlier in the war and now is trying to say that the Western ones are "made better and used smarter" which is total nonsense. But I suppose there are military reasons for it. USA does not seem particularly willing to let Ukraine into NATO in the foreseeable future. Once again the direction changes. 2008 Bucharest agreement is very much condemned these days. What makes this worse is that if USA does not take leadership in this matter, then we have to ask if they are really willing to risk nuclear war over Estonia or Lithuania if it really comes to it.
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  21. There is certainly a lot to unpack. - It seems Washington is repeating the Ukraine playbook. Keep the fighting contained and pour in money and weapons. There is no political solution anywhere in sight. Just total war until total victory. Or in the case of Ukraine, total defeat. US Senate has been totally unified in their support of the Israeli war effort. I believe it was senator Cotton who said "make the rubble bounce in Gaza." - Hezbollah will not allow the existential destruction of Hamas. And then Iran will not allow the existential destruction of Hezbollah. It is a case of chained security guarantees, you could say. States will go to war, if the alternative is total loss of credibility. And now US is in the same problem. Because they seem to be just threatening Iran to not get involved, so now Biden has to live up to his guarantees. It is recipe for disaster. - US sent the 101st Airbourne from Romania into Jordan. We saw during the Ukraine War that US troop deployment in Europe was too small to defeat the Russian military in a conventional scenario. And now they have moved ground forces AWAY from Europe. The two carrier strike groups cannot play a decisive role in any major ground war scenario. Besides, the potential adversaries in the area now have the tools to threaten US Navy vessels. Now that IDF called in the reservists, Israel army outnumber the US Army. Everything we see underlines the rapid decline of American hard power. - Blinken is just as feckless as Pompeo, if less thuggish. No one in the Muslim world was interested in his tour. - von der Leyen tried to lead Europe into total support of Israel, but attracted only controversy in return. She tried to be the leader of European foreign policy, which is clearly outside her portfolio. Borrell and Michel, who actually lead EU foreign policy, were against her as well. One of the major problems of the EU for the last 20 years have been US-sponsored candidates in major positions. Hopefully von der Leyen will be the last of her kind. - I have no idea why Macron would talk about the ISIS-coalition as a blueprint for fighting Hamas. Maybe the impossibility of the idea is the point? Domestically, Macron is caught between Jews and Muslims so there is basically nothing he can do here. I will say that Israel has not been a good friend. To get the Abraham Accords, US recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. This is a frozen problem going back over 50 years. US actions have made it much more likely that Morocco and Algeria will finally turn their old, cold war into a hot one. Israel also sold the King of Morocco some Pegasus spyware, which was then used to spy on France. Moroccans and the French have deep ties on all levels, but this all has caused a major diplomatic crisis. Besides, France is an important player in the Muslim world in general. There is virtually no geopolitical upside in working with US to support Israel against the Arabs. It should also be mentioned that Israel has provided Russia the tools for their current, very advanced drone program from 2014 forwards. - I was utterly stunned about Ian's remarks about Ukraine and NATO. For over 20 years US has maintained the goal of getting Ukraine into NATO. Just look at W. Bush in Bucharest. Russia literally said before the invasion that their goal was to keep Ukraine neutral. And US said "open door policy" and said Russia has no right to ask for anything. Absolutely stunning. Europe has always been against bringing Ukraine into NATO, in order to not provoke a war. And we saw in Vilnius the policy reversed. Only US and their pawn Scholz were against giving Ukraine a path into NATO. Lies after lies after lies. Any goodwill earned in 2022 will burn out when Israel crushes Gaza. There needs to be a peace forum with all regional players and great powers represented so we can finally find a lasting political solution. But US is saying "Israel -- right or wrong" while paying lip service to Palestinian dead. It will not fly anymore. The world has irrevocably changed.
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  22. When the Ukraine War began, European allies on the Eastern flank asked for more US troops. Very much understandable. US sent three brigade combat teams. That is about 12,500 soldiers. That force could not protect even the capital of Finland. So you see why NATO is headed for the glue factory. The Maidan Coup was ordered by Obama and deposed a democratically elected leader. Maybe he was corrupt and too close to Moscow, but he was nevertheless elected in a fair election. There was a UN Security Council resolution after the 2014 events. Unanimous agreement. What US did was arm and train the Ukrainians and tell them "forget the resolution." Merkel confirmed it. I remember one of the Warsaw Pact democratic activists wrote that "Soviets pretend not to pretend." That is who the Americans are today. No matter your sponsors and connections, at some point the whole rotten lie is going to collapse.
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  23. There are two sides to European support for Ukraine. On the one hand, we have seen that Europe has the resources and the political capability to do something like this. On the other hand, we are sitting around like idiots waiting for Biden to make a decision about peace. I hope that this crisis will finally rouse Europe from this naïve slumber into an actual geopolitical player. The longer the war drags on, the larger the risk of escalation and the uglier the peace talks will be. Russia has now put in so much blood and treasure that they now want more than they did before the invasion. And we are closer now to nuclear war than possibly even in 1962. I am also stunned how the media has been in lockstep behind this war in a way that is not healthy for democracy. We know that there is corruption, oligarchy and a very active far right in Ukraine. We could discuss these things somewhat before the invasion but then we went into this self-censorship mode. All those weapons we pour in with so little supervision will turn Ukraine into an arms bazaar. I believe some of those weapons showed up in the recent French riots. Then there are the exceedingly dangerous decisions made by our American overlords before the war. American influence in Ukrainian domestic politics after the 2014 coup has been well-documented and obscene. Yet we close our eyes in Europe. Before the war, there were extensive NATO military exercises in the Russian border. One of them even simulated shooting missiles into Russian territory. There was also a naval exercise in the Black Sea that included Ukraine and had a Royal Navy vessel wander into Russian waters. And of course there are the missile bases in Poland and Romania. We Europeans are geopolitical idiots. We collectively have the same GDP as the US and much healthier societies. Why are we allowing United States, that sclerotic parasite, lead us into nuclear war?
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  24. This is truly a layered disaster. - Mr. Biden has apparently chosen to unconditionally support Israel in public and then privately influence them... with rhetoric only it seems. It is remarkable how he misjudged Netanyahu and the people around him. For Netanyahu, this war is existential on a personal level. He does not want to go to jail so he has nothing to lose. The people around him are violent ethno-nationalists. Various ministers have been genocidal in their pronouncements and they are allowed to stay in place. They have no reason to respond to any rhetorical pressure, considering that they want Greater Israel at any cost. Besides, Israel needs to show strength to restore deterrence and credibility. Overwhelming military force is what they have always done. - Netanyahu could very well stay in office -- or at the very least it cannot be ruled out. Israel has been prosperous under his tenure and while the Israeli people may dislike Netanyahu's legislation, they wholeheartedly support what he does. The anti-Netanyahu protests have in fact disappeared. - There will be no two-state solution. Israel would never create a state that could present it with a security challenge. For demographic reasons, Israel would never accept a one-state solution. Very likely Israel will continue down the current path of purging and expelling the Palestinians. Trying to get Muslim nations on board in Gaza somehow is a total fantasy. Even if they are monarchs, the Arab leaders cannot ignore popular opinion to that degree. - Mr. Biden cannot do anything other than what he is doing. He cannot allow a ceasefire because if an attack takes place during that ceasefire, he will lose on the domestic stage. Israeli lobby is truly legendary for their ability to affect election results. Netanyahu very likely calculates that Biden is a man of the past already and that Mr. Trump will support Israel no matter what. So Netanyahu can afford to say and do whatever he wants. This is all contrary to actual US political interests. Americans are seen as genocidal for giving the weapons and impotent for the ineffectual rhetorical positioning. This will have a very significant effect on US foreign policy for a very long time. - It remains to be seen if US can remain as the security guarantor of the region. US is trying to suppress news on the attacks on American personnel in Syria and Iraq, which again indicates weakness. There would have to be a response of some sort, a show of force. Now that de-dollarization is gaining traction, it would be good for US strategists to remind themselves of the petro-dollar.
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  25. Computing power is nowhere near enough to simulate the neurons we have. Maybe once quantum computing really takes off... Until then AI is basically a "finish this pattern" tool, to put it extremely crudely. It is still a powerful tool and we will see in the 2024 elections how it can do the evil things Ian warned us about, sadly.
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  26. I would hazard a guess that Prigozhin was kept around for intelligence reasons. GRU was keeping Prigozhin under surveillance to find out if he had connections to the West or other supporters inside Russia. The interesting thing about the Wagner saga is what will happen in Africa. Now the Wagner mercenaries are looking like Russian soldiers and not a private enterprise. Much has been made of Wagner's takeover of Africa, but the fact remains that Russian trade and investment in Africa are minimal. Most African elites in fact dread military coups in their own countries. It really makes no strategic sense for Russia to instigate a wave of military coups... in particular because the Sahel countries in question are so poor and unstable that Russia has zero chance of improving the wealth and security of these places.
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  27. When it comes to Putin, I do not like the system he has created one bit. I am in fact happy I'm not living in that system. But then you have this country with 11 time zones and 4,000 nuclear weapons. So we are stuck on the same planet with Russia and then we have to decided what is the least bad way forward. I do not believe that minefields and machine guns on the border is the way to go. Does not mean we should welcome Russian influence into our politics, but a degree of pragmatism and transactionalism would be a lot better then a very real of a great power war. So it well and truly horrifies me that we are now going to have the same problems with the United States. Because I believe Trump is going to accelerate the problems at home for sure, but I also foresee that he will increase the militarization of US foreign policy that has created no end of troubles for the Americans these past 30 years. Probably the true tragedy of Trump 2024 will be that he is an elitist masquerading as a populist. I do not believe for one second that he would address the wealth inequality in US that is at the core of all this dysfunction. He is most likely going to give Koch the libertarian dystopia that he has sought for so long. A big question for political scientists is going to be how smaller democracies should act when a country that is systemically so very important in fact becomes a tyrant, or at least a extortion artist.
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  28. USA has 50,000 soldiers in Japan and 24,000 in South Korea. If USA tells these two nations, who have a complex history, to do as they are told... they will do as they are told. China is the most important trading partner for both so it would be much better to remain peaceful, even neutral, with China and cultivate economic ties. USA is more or less seen as an imperialist bully trying to contain China militarily. I would say that currently the biggest threat to world peace is the American strategy against China. Clearly USA is putting together an alliance that will trigger all the remaining US allies against China if and when a war breaks out. Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Japan and maybe Singapore will be sucked in. Rest of the world thinks USA is basically a threat, which it increasingly is. Ian should sometime do a video on how US is militarizing Australia and edging them closer to a nuclear weapon base. I am willing to bet good money that even among the democratic allies, you are going to see a movement away from USA, because being dominated by USA is becoming such a liability.
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  29. It would seem that the pro-Palestine protesters have gotten their faces and eyes captured on camera. Once their identities are confirmed, they will be blacklisted and will never find employment in corporate America. United States is progressing in a very worrisome direction, Trump or no Trump.
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  30. Ukraine War needs to come to a negotiated settlement. People ask, well, why don't the Europeans do it? Because the war is ultimately about Ukraine joining NATO or not. Russia will not accept a peace settlement where Ukraine joins NATO. They will want a guarantee from Biden to that end. But Biden and his team have been saying for 20 months that "Russia has already lost." Well guess what? Russia is not losing this thing. It will be bloody, but they will grind a win out of it. Biden has staked his foreign policy record on this war so he cannot back out of it. Now we are hearing from the Oversight Committee that they indeed have went through the bank records of the Biden family and there seems to be dirt there. Even in this day and age, I cannot believe that the Oversight Committee would lie about that. Democrats undoubtedly view Trump as an existential peril for the Republic. But there may also be a personal incentive for Biden and his team to win the next election. Ironically enough, Biden might be in a similar position to Netanyahu that he and his son may go to prison. American researchers have found that the Russiagate thing was a hoax. And that the Hunter Biden laptop was indeed real. So who knows, maybe some of the Biden team might also be looking at jail time if a vengeful Trump wins 2024. Apart from that, is Biden even mentally competent to handle difficult negotiations anymore? So who knows what is even real in American politics anymore. I will say that the trajectory is towards even more war until I see something concrete that will change the situation.
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  31. American policy towards Europe has always been that there needs to be stability, but not too much. Great Britain is in the EU but makes sure to stop any real integration. After Brexit it seems that USA-UK relations have cratered because UK lost their main value as a partner in Europe. Funny how history works. I remember reading the American media in the 1990's and a lot of the conversation was about making sure that EU will never become a "second superpower." Now the conversation is about making sure that EU will never become a "third superpower" so clearly progress has been made. You definitely see the longing for the Merkel days as well. Find someone that manages the various crises but does not have a strategic vision about EU integration. But considering the total implosion of Merkel's Ostpolitik, you are not going to get another Merkel. It might be time for our American friends to find a more interesting vision about Europe.
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  32. - Asking the Europeans to take a hard line against China is impossible. All the focus is on Ukraine until that is done. There was already a very heavy economic price to pay for cutting off Russia and supporting the war effort. It is not like anyone had spare billions and weapons lying around. Projections are that economic growth is coming from China opening up after COVID and trading with them. There is also no political bandwidth to do any foreign policy adventures. - I watched the Biden press conference in Japan. There were some questions about Ukraine and the F-16 decision, which reversed his earlier decision. I think there was only one question about the G7 conference itself. The main focus was beyond any doubt on the debt ceiling crisis. So I have to agree with Ian that it sends a very wrong message. Not feeling any Schadenfreude either... just hoping that somehow the dysfunction will subside. - Big topic in European discussion is the reconstruction of Ukraine. Where will the money come from? Some have suggested using the frozen Russian assets. It sounds good from a common sense perspective, but using assets belonging to private persons and institutions is legally speaking very difficult. Another option is shared EU debt. But that is politically very divisive among the member states. There are also questions about the American commitment post-war. It would be good for American interests in Europe to commit to the reconstruction process as well, if this is financially feasible for you. - One point from Macron's press conference was interesting. He said we should not split the world into blocs. This is not something the developing nations have any interest in. Creating two blocs is also a "self-fulfilling prophecy" from a security perspective. Indeed some American senior military figures have commented that there is, as of yet, a strategic military alliance between China and Russia and this is something that should be avoided at all costs. France of course wants to maintain their diplomatic freedom and does not really benefit from lining up too tightly to American interests. I'm willing to bet that other great powers (insert the term that pleases you the most) feel the same. Food for thought. - Another point in the European discussion is definitely American protectionism. Some still hope the negotiations go somewhere and the Americans relent. But with the dysfunction in Washington... how probable that is? I can tell you for sure that this is a major weakness in the American project. Are we really going to have a situation where China is the economic powerhouse and USA is using their security guarantees to leverage other power to go against China? Because that would be an impossibly hard sell to make.
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  33. Such a tragedy. Horrifying acts by Hamas. Ironic that Ian should mention Bush and 9/11. We have learned after the fact from people like Lawrence Wilkerson, who wrote Colin Powell's infamous UN speech, that before the Al-Qaeda attack there were many senior people in the security state who in fact were planning for wars in the Middle East and were wishing for a "Pearl Harbour to galvanize the American public." Does not mean Cheney and Rumsfeld planned the attacks and carried them out, but it makes the subsequent events far more understandable. The historical moment unleashed the worst impulses of the worst people. How does that relate to today? Well, we also know now that many current and former members of Mossad were in fact supporting the protests against Netanyahu. Ian of course mentioned that Israeli military were also striking, meaning people as high up as pilots and even Special Forces. Why? Because Netanyahu and the people in his government are not the people to lead Israel through an Intifada. There are violent extremists making decisions there. Already an Israel Army spokesman said that this will be a long, bloody conflict but Israel will prevail and Gaza will be a part of Israel in the end. Netanyahu has already claimed that a "huge price" will be exacted. We are headed for even greater tragedies. Because there is no contest between the IDF and Palestine militias. It will be a bloodbath. If this indeed is a war, shouldn't there be an official declaration of war against Palestine and then give enemy combatants the rights agreed in Geneva Accords? I very much doubt Netanyahu would ever go there. Bush decided to use the military to end terrorism, which was a terrible decision. Yet we are now repeating the mistake. I want to see proof before accusing Netanyahu for allowing these attacks to happen, but I have no doubt that he will use the patriotic moment to further his authoritarian agenda. I rarely say this, but I have to agree with the Saudis about the Israeli policies. They have been inching ever close to apartheid. Some time ago IDF were given orders to shoot Palestinians approaching the various roadblocks in the kneecaps. Netanyahu has been brutal against the Palestinians for a very long time now. No matter how much love we have for Israel, the progress towards an apartheid state has been profoundly unwise from the political leadership. There are many, many Israelis who are tired of the violence and want to see an end to it. Besides, many Israeli citizens today are Arabs by ethnicity. When IDF inevitably kills civilians, this will cause further political rifts in the Israeli society. Terrible times ahead.
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  34. There are five nations that still have not put forward a carbon neutral by 2050 plan. It includes places like Haiti and Yemen... and of course the United States of America. There is exactly zero chance that USA will ever regulate its own tech companies or get into a global organisation that would regulate them. Zero chance. Over the last 20 years USA has withdrawn from all nuclear weapons treaties and has indeed expanded on their nuclear arsenal. Obama put over a trillion into expanding and updating that nuclear arsenal. US defence analysts are currently talking about putting tactical nuclear weapons on Navy assets. We also know that US Navy is currently testing automated drones in the Pacific, ones that operate in the sea. Because US military recruiting is in a historic crisis and is missing its recruitment targets by as much as 25%, Pentagon is doubling down on the automated battlefield. They should be able to take human decision out of the kill chain in the 2020s, if they have not already done so. China has more people and ships so they would be willing to regulate AI-based weapons. USA feels it needs something to even the odds and accordingly will pursue every advantage. Besides, look at all the treaties USA is not a part of. Open Skies, International Criminal Court, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and so on. Why would Washington go into a global regulatory body that would entail power sharing? US strategic culture is totally opposed to international treaties and regulating the private sector. It is nice to have academic discourse, but you would have to change American political culture to get there. And that will not happen. USA wants to rule, not to lead. It is up to the Europeans to lead in ethical AI. Climate change and nuclear weapons are known quantities, yet USA fails to lead again and again. Their inability to regulate US corporations has led to massive oligopolies, especially in the tech sector. That lobbying power is a key reason why US tech regulation has never had any teeth and why it will never grow them.
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  35. Academics love these imaginary threshold. "Last Saturday, a new era began." But we have seen the symbiotic relationship between the tech elites and political elites for decades now. Clinton slashed regulation and pumped in public money into the rising tech sector and used all his power to get them their oligopoly. Obama's security state could not have existed without the extensive support of the tech companies. And in the last 15 years, this relationship has only deepened. There was extensive social media suppression against Trump in the last election. Think what you will of Trump, that is an unhealthy relationship. But is this something new somehow? US domestic politics has been a plutocracy for decades now. Back when Clinton was working on NATO expansion, Lockheed Martin was a part of the committee! That is not a joke either, that is what literally happened. Lockheed wanted to sell weapons to the former Warsaw Pact countries and they got what they wanted. The biggest reasons for the Ukraine War was getting the Europeans to buy more US weapons and US energy and then snatch up European manufacturing when Germany in particular loses its ability to compete. You can go even further back to Smedley Butler, the war hero who in later life became a peace activist after he realised that he had been a "a gangster for capitalism." Just look at Big Pharma and Biden. Biden is desperately trying to negotiate to get medicine prices down a bit, that is literally the extent of his power and even this is too much for him. The corporate elites want no taxes and no regulation and they want US foreign policy to advance their interests abroad. And they are getting everything they want. Big Tech is not different in any meaningful way. The mistake Ian is making that he thinks developing technology will somehow make you separate from existing culture and power structures. And that is nonsense. Big Tech leaders are part of the ruling elite and that is where they get their views from. Amazon, Uber, Facebook and others increase their profits with suppressing the labour movement and coordinating labour practices. 60% of the middle-class Americans' wages go now to rent. And why is that? Because these oligopolies are buying up all the residential real estate. Corporate profits have absolutely skyrocketed during this inflation and everything else, and even the President is helpless. What scares me as a European is that we know full well how much USA interferes in elections and domestic policy of everyone they can. We will very likely see USA using their new AI tools and their incestuous relationship with Big Tech to replace actual democracy with US foreign policy objectives. The United States has a plutocratic domestic policy and an authoritarian foreign policy. So as the US democracy becomes more and more dysfunctional and US loses more and more of their economic and technological edge... they will increase their oppression of their remaining allies. Look at Australia and how the Taiwanese War is being sold to them. We will see more of this and even less of any regulation or even taxation of big business. God only knows why Ian is not speaking out about any of this. Maybe the Eurasia Group is financed by the same polluted money that finances all the think tanks that simply produce supremacist propaganda.
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  36. The Knesset recently voted against any two-state solution. It was unanimous. Even the opposition leaders are totally pro-war. 46% of Israeli population thinks IDF has not gone far enough in Gaza, according to polling. It is safe to say they have crossed the Rubicon and are totally committed to solving the Palestine question with military force alone. This is also bad news for Biden. He has been talking about the two-state solution, which Netanyahu would never accept. So Netanyahu very likely wants to keep the war going until November for US electoral reasons. If Biden loses and Trump returns, Trump will give Israel anything and everything. Biden has been getting record donations from the Israel lobby, which makes the whole thing even more sordid. It is also interesting that French and American diplomats have both been negotiating with Lebanon and Hezbollah to keep the war from expanding. They have virtually the same proposals. What seems to have happened is that US diplomats copied the French proposal in order to steal thunder and give Biden a political win. They may well be able to bribe and bully their way to success. It is who Americans are today. They would cut their allies throats for a headline.
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  37. Cohabitation would only happen if the National Rally got an outright majority in the National Assembly and Jordan Bardella would then be made prime minister. That is incredibly unlikely. First, NR would need to triple the amount of seats it now has. Second, the European Parliament election is nation-wide, has a much lower turnout than parliamentary elections and is typically a protest vote against the incumbent, as in other European countries. The chances of Le Pen getting a coalition with the other right-wing parties is also very very low. The big thing to watch are Les Républicains. Their leader, Eric Ciotti, made a very big leap in promising a coalition with LR and NR. That did not go well with the LR leadership, at all. The two parties have very different programs and voter bases, as well as hostile histories. In effect, Ciotti went against his own for electoral reasons, which will not play well. We will see how badly LR splits. If it does in fact fall apart in two, Macron will scoop up the defectors on his side. The left-wing coalition, NUPES, did have a good showing in 2022, but they then fell apart in the European elections and their renewed coalition (or "front") is looking very shaky in practice. There could be defectors to Macron's camp as well. The logic behind the snap election seems to be for Macron to split up both the left and the right and motivate the French to vote against Le Pen. We will see how it plays out, but it is audacious.
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  38. I read that the IRA is going to add $2 trillion on the deficit. The original estimate was $400 million or so. So the bear bond market we are going to get is going to be even worse. Besides, if you look at the job reports -- the revised ones -- then US is losing manufacturing jobs. Those US job reports are scandalous. They are always revised downwards after the fact, with alarming degree and regularity. "Who lies first wins." Here is another interesting economic data point. Ever since Bill Clinton, US has been favouring short-term bonds for interest reasons. So half of the current debt is maturing in the next three years and needs to be refinanced. Now we could have $3 trillion deficits in the same time period as well. So US needs to borrow $27 trillion in that time period! And all that refinanced debt is at much higher interest rates than is currently the case. So the interest rates are going to explode and keep exploding. I'm amazed we are not discussing the US aid to Ukraine. The money has already run out on the American package, a month ago I believe. They are now rationing what little they have left to tide things over! So you get $100 million packages a month as a fig leaf for Biden. Secretary Austin had to fly over to Kiev and basically say that "US is good for it, please trust us." Pitiful state for our current hegemon.
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  39. Putin is going to be in power for decade, certainly. Ukraine has lost 500,000 - 600,000 killed and maimed. They have stated that they would need 20,000 fresh troops per month to maintain their military. Ukrainian population before the invasion was 40 million. Millions have left as refugees. I would be stunned if the Ukrainian military is standing in January 2025. Refusing to negotiate with Putin only makes sense from American domestic politics. "We would never bow before a tyrant" and so on, but strategically it is a disaster. We have now learned that US does not even have weapons to send anymore... the recent aid package was a non-event. Washington is not playing an important role, except as an impediment.
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  40. Macron and Attal are going to win this thing. Here is why: - Domestic elections are about economy. Macron is called "president of the rich" but the good side of that is that the big tycoons support him and will finance his campaign even on a short notice. Now that Les Républicains imploded, the pro-business vote in France has nowhere else to go. This alone will seal the deal. - Attal is a very good performer and a friendly face for the pro-business, law-and-order Macronism of 2024. Even if you are centre-left, you can see Attal as the Prime Minister. - Police unions and the military types support Macron. Darmanin is also fairly popular in these circles and the ruling party has been able to face down riots without too much violence. I would say the law-and-order types will vote for the ruling coalition. Macron is generally seen as a strong leader abroad, which the right wing types also like. - Macron has managed to frame the election as "The far right has plunged France into danger" which is much better than, say, a vote of no confidence on the next budget. - Not even 50% of his own coalition want to see Mélenchon as the next Prime Minister, let alone 50% of France. He is such a curse on the French Left. - Jordan Bardell has to be the most overvalued stock in European politics. He is good on the social media with the young women, but no adult wants to see him holding the purse strings for the next three years. Whenever Bardell goes off script into adult politics, he comes off as totally ignorant. Expect him to lose to Attal in debates just as badly as in the EU elections. Bardell is a 28-year old college dropout and the French will not give the purse strings to him. - What is Le Pen going to run on, exactly? During the pension protests she demanded Macron's resignation. Now she accepts the reform. She cannot attack Macron on immigration because she supported Macron's immigration reform, in what has to be the greatest blunder of her political career. The only avenue is the cost of living, but then she would have to convince France that her party is better for the economy than Macron. Unless she can somehow conjure a very convincing budget proposal for 2024, she is going to sink. These Le Pen speeches of "Brussels tries to tell us what to do, but we will resist!" comes off as behind the times at best. - And finally, Les Républicains' soap opera means that most of them can only defect to Macron. Its impossible to found a new party in 20 days and then win as well.
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  41. It seems Hezbollah has declared a ground invasion of Gaza as a red line. They have also been increasing their attacks on Israel, destroying several observation stations and such. Considering they have been escalating for a while now, the chance of getting involved seems high. The other interesting bit of news is that the Arab states are putting together some sort of a summit with China. It seems they want a political solution to this mess, once and for all. Europeans have put together a humanitarian air corridor into Gaza and have tripled the aid going there. But that shows the old problem of the situation: US is saying "Israel, wrong or right" which has meant that Europe has to go along. And that in turns makes life hard for Europeans, because they want to have good relations with the Arabs, both the regional powers as well as the immigrants living in EU. I do not think the two US aircraft carriers have any real contribution to make in any military scenario with Gaza or Hezbollah. It is a political gesture above all. Now Trump put in a military base into Israel, which goes against decades of wise policy. Because now Hezbollah or any other bad actor can send drones to strike the carriers or launch missiles to strike the US base. And that is that then. The question for the future is: now that the world is in flux and US does not run the Middle East anymore, will the Israelis finally have the political wisdom to find a political solution and give Palestinians their own state? Standing alone against the hundreds of millions of Arabs has become impossible. As to Ukraine: I have always maintained that US can simply pull the plug and change the subject and walk away from Ukraine. But this would mean that US loses their position as the security guarantor of Europe. That seems inevitable now. Recently Burrell and the EU foreign ministers had a summit in Ukraine, where plans were made to give defence aid and financial support for years. It would be unfortunate for USA to be the one to give up, but that is the trajectory.
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  42. There is a recent CSIS paper on US deterrence forces in Europe. What US can spare is four brigades. That is nothing. It is safe to say that NATO is circling the drain.
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  43. It was once again an concerning press conference from Mr. Biden. He is clearly having health problems. There was also a change in rhetoric. Mr. Biden proclaimed "We will support Ukraine as long as we can" which is even more concerning. What is the Ukraine strategy from the US? If the current package passes, it will be about $5 billion a month until the election is over. Europeans want to know whether or not the Americans are going to share in the massive economic costs in the long term. It would be a grave strategic error from the US to just throw Ukraine over to the EU and just say "Well they are worthless anyway, let them deal with this." Beyond that is the security question. How could Ukraine join EU without joining NATO?
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  44. Ukraine does not meet any of the criteria of joining EU. It would be absolute insanity to let them in. I do not know where Mr. Bildt gets his information from, but Ukraine has lots thousands of lives for no gain. Various long-range strikes will not have a decisive influence on this war. They are of course important when they happen to you, but on the strategic scale they are pinpricks or media distractions. They do have an escalatory dimension to them, however. Some are behaving like escalation does not exist anymore and we can just do whatever, but that is not the case. This war needs to end. We are headed for a catastrophic defeat otherwise.
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  45. It is concerning because if you are in the professional class and follow world events, Putin was being more truthful and insightful than Western leaders, Americans in particular. I love democracy but democracy cannot work unless our leaders are willing to talk about the serious, adult matters in an honest manner. What has happened over the last decade is that you cannot follow US mainstream media anymore, if you want to understand what is actually happening. You have to know people or wonder into alternative media looking for podcasts. Small wonder that Trump and his ilk are winning in elections.
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  46. I would love to hear what Ian thinks about the surreal G7 meeting in Italy. I would also love to hear what he foresees happening in the big NATO summit.
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  47. One of the targets hit was a Russian early-warning system against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Clearly, clearly, we should not be hitting these targets. Yet the Ukrainians seem to get very little adult supervision from the White House. It is also good to remember that as the battlefield situation gets more desperate for the Ukrainians, their incentive is to escalate and draw NATO into the conflict. We should negotiate with the Russians and find a sustainable peace.
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  48.  @poulha Yeah I fixed the number
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  49. I am very much against the American foreign policy, but watching you go through this is no pleasure. It is a highly valid observation that Trump is an elitist disguised as a populist. But I also have to say that Biden came into office after the January 6th riots and did not clean up the system in any meaningful way. The people involved of course met the long arm of the law, but all the structural problems are still there in spaces. Just look at his climate czar, Joe Manchun, who is a coal millionaire and spent his time in office blocking all the green progress. Biden has also been proud how all these wars create jobs in America, which is grotesque. And then we have all the inequality, which is the engine that is ruining America and this also increased under Biden, as did the budget deficits. So no matter who wins, all the structural forces that create populism in US will remain in place, which is the true tragedy.
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  50. I'm conflicted by the current European security situation. On the one hand, we are rapidly evolving into an independent security actor. This war has shown us that Europe is stronger and more resilient than anyone could have imagined. On the other hand, we should be moving towards peace in Ukraine. The counter-offensive cost so many dead to Ukraine and I cannot imagine they could do a spring offensive in 2024 that would fare any better. This unfortunately means concessions to Russia. But Russian military might is growing. It is possible that Russia wins on the battlefield in 2024. Now imagine if Russia does indeed win next year, during the US election. This would be a tremendous humiliation for US and NATO. There is the possibility that Biden would rather get involved in the war than accept the humiliation. And that would mean World War 3
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